Jesu Jesu Fill us with Your love

Jesu Jesu Fill us with Your love 

Attended the Wesley 11.30am service today and heard this hymn - Jesu Jesu Fill Us with Your Love - for the first time. It was so beautiful and so different from the typical Methodist hymn that I immediately looked it up online. 

The hymn was written by Thomas Stevenson Colvin (Tom), a Church of Scotland missionary in Malawi and Ghana, in 1963. He had written the words in Chereponi, northern Ghana, while he was attending a lay-training course in agriculture, development, and evangelism. 

New converts had brought a folk melody to this meeting, which they thought might be appropriate for a text about Christian love. So the tune is a traditional Ghanaian folk love song - Chereponi. 

Hunted for YouTube videos of this hymn. This clip is one of the best renditions of the hymn. I think I'll be humming it for the next few days.


Source: www.hymnary.org

What are your happy moments?

Happiness is:

- Looking out every morning to see how concrete slabs are being transformed into green oases surrounding the Esplanade, from the aircon comfort of a guaranteed seat in a private bus. 

- Seeing the Marina Bay Sands hotel every morning and remembering that it was Stephen Wiltshire's favourite landmark in his Singapore cityscape drawing.

- Waving to the neighbour of the lady C who takes the same private transport service as me as he crosses the road to take bus 972 every morning. Lady C told me that he is a marathoner and travels to run overseas. I would never have guessed it from the way he looks. Respect.

- A ministry-focused prayer session that ended half an hour earlier than the usual supervision session. I think I smiled too broadly at the end of the closing prayer. Then words floated over, "you pontan Monday meeting hor?" Guilty as charged.  

- A Restaurant Week lunch at Napoleon where service was impeccable and the food sumptuous.
- Having my ministry mates pray for my needs even as we prayed for others and the ministry. Such assurance of protection and covering over me. Prayed for two people on the prayer bulletin. Privileged and humbled. 

- Seeing a yellow butterfly land on a potted plant outside the Fullerton Bay Hotel this morning.

Birthday thanks

As every birthday passes, I am increasingly convicted of the adage that “no man is an island”. I would not be who I am today without the people who surround me in my life. Gratitude, humility and service out of a heart of love and compassion that I see in people around me motivate and inspire me to be a better person who is striving to safe-keep these attributes.

The pressure to just go with the flow and follow the crowd instead of upholding key biblical principles and values can be overwhelming. Doing the right thing is tough. Holding one’s tongue, giving others the benefit of the doubt, walking in another person’s shoes, lending a listening ear, resisting the feeling of schadenfreude, extending a helping hand, serving and guiding others, and finally, faithfully following God in a world that appears increasingly to have forsaken Him.

Oftentimes, I fail, and many times I fail badly. But you know what? Jesus already knew the sinner I am even before He gave his life for me. The wonderful comfort of His grace. How immensely liberating in a world that is status-obsessed, achievement-oriented, works-based, money-conscious and love-deprived.

I have nothing to prove because God has already accepted me by extending His grace to me. I have everything I need to serve because God has given me His Holy Spirt, my comforter and my guide. That is not all. God has also blessed me with many strong trees of shelter in this one life of mine. Whenever I need comfort, rest and recharging, I disappear under their shade where I feel protected, safe and refreshed.

A heart that seeks after Thee

How wonderful it is to be a keen collector of stories because God always presents me with such interesting episodes to share. 

Got into a cab today and to my surprise, I heard Hebrew worship songs being played by the cab driver. After a while, I told the cab driver that I was surprised to hear Hebrew songs. He told me that he had converted to Judaism in his 40s. He said that he kept having strange dreams over many years in which he was asking people around him "who am I" in his dreams. And for some reason he felt that it was God who gave him the recurring dreams. He had been of another faith and he was given a bible. He read it and he said that even today, he still doesn't understand a lot of it. But he started believing in God the Father and he was very drawn to the Old Testament. As a result, he started meeting people who had converted to Judaism or believed in the God of the Old Testament. I asked him whether he was attending a church or synagogue and he said no, but that he would meet frequently with a small group who all believed and followed Jewish practices. He asked me "are you a believer or a follower?" My question to him was "what enables us to get to heaven?" I listened to him because he was putting forth his reasons as to why he believed in Judaism. He shared his perspectives and his understanding of the Bible. I respected that even though I may not agree with some of his views or beliefs, but I felt that it was neither the time nor place to engage him on such things. So I listen intently without rebuttal. At the end of the journey, I told him that if he continues to believe in God the Father, God will be faithful to him. 

Reflection: I was brought to Matthew 7:7 by my conversation with this cab driver. “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you." I was deeply humbled by his seeking heart because he is actively finding God in his own personal way.

To a nation that was not called by my name

I felt very touched after reading an article and watching a YouTube video which features Hazem Farraj. He mentioned Isaiah 65:1 in talking about God's pro-active love and how it is oftentimes revealed through dreams and visions.

Isaiah 65:1 (ESV)
I was ready to be sought by those who did not ask for me;
I was ready to be found by those who did not seek me....
I said, “Here I am, here I am,”
to a nation that was not called by my name.

Make them look

Writers should look for what others don't see

Excerpt: In a larger sense, there are other blankets we don’t want to lift and see what lies underneath. There is a kind of truth—that’s a big word—that we hate to look at. It could be a face in the street, someone who looks in pain, someone who’s suffering. We turn away—we can’t look at everything. But I like poems that occasionally do that to the reader: make them look.

The Summer Day - Mary Oliver

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down
into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,
how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,
which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

I happened to be standing - Mary Oliver

I don’t know where prayers go,
or what they do.
Do cats pray, while they sleep
half-asleep in the sun?
Does the possum pray as it
crosses the street?
The sunflowers? The old black oak
growing older every year?
I know I can walk through the world,
along the shore or under the trees,
with my mind filled with things
of little importance, in full
self-attendance.  A condition I can’t really
call being alive.
Is a prayer a gift, or a petition,
or does it matter?
The sunflowers blaze, maybe that’s their way.
Maybe the cats are sound asleep.  Maybe not.

While I was thinking this I happened to be standing
just outside my door, with my notebook open,
which is the way I begin every morning.
Then a wren in the privet began to sing.
He was positively drenched in enthusiasm,
I don’t know why.  And yet, why not.
I wouldn’t persuade you from whatever you believe
or whatever you don’t.  That’s your business.
But I thought, of the wren’s singing, what could this be
if it isn’t a prayer?
So I just listened, my pen in the air.

Bits & pieces

1. What are you grateful for?

2. What are you proudest of?

3. What’s been the happiest moment of your life so far?

4. What’s been the hardest moment of your life, and how did you get through it?

5. What are the most important lessons you’ve learned in life?

6. How would you describe yourself as a child? Were you happy?

7. Who has been kindest to you?

8. How do you want to be remembered?

9. If your great great grandchildren could listen to this years from now: is there any wisdom you’d want to pass on to them? What would you want them to know?

10. If you could honor one person in your life — living or dead — by listening to their story, who would that be, what would you ask them and why?

(lifted from http://ideas.ted.com/10-questions-to-ask-your-family-aroun…/)

Close encounters of the unusual kind

Got into a cab a few nights ago and the elderly lady driver started talking to me about her life and her loving relationship with her husband/boyfriend. Then she mentioned that two years ago, she almost wanted to do something stupid and her husband said he would also follow her. I asked her what happened etc - long conversation, at the end of which when I alighted, I gently reminded her to take care and treasure all that she has now. Life is precious.
Lesson: Take buses more often. Can save money, too.

Was at a bus-stop tonight and this lady started talking to me, asking me how to let it go if someone has hurt her badly or if someone in her family has placed a charm on her? I asked her "oh dear, what do you mean? What happened?" A much shorter conversation this time, because when the fifth bus pulled up at the bus stop, she stood up suddenly and said "that's my bus".
Lesson: Can afford to take cabs on some nights.

Big lesson: Lord, thank you for trusting me to offer comfort and encouragement to strangers. Every encounter is a divine appointment. Amen.

The Light of the world

"Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light." - Theodore Roethke
What do your roots comprise, I wonder?

There's nothing worth more that would ever come close,
No thing can compare, You're our living Hope,
Your presence, Lord.
I've tasted and seen of the sweetest of loves,
When my heart becomes free and my shame is undone,
Your presence, Lord.
(Holy Spirit, Jesus Culture with Martin Smith)

Taking hold of God's promises:
- Faith
- Obedience
- Courage and readiness
- Timing
- Discipline
- Remembering God

The year of the Lord's favour

A Jubilee year for Singapore

Thankfulness and gratitude

“Life without thankfulness is devoid of love and passion. Hope without thankfulness is lacking in fine perception. Faith without thankfulness lacks strength and fortitude. Every virtue divorced from thankfulness is maimed and limps along the spiritual road.” 

“God does not comfort us to make us comfortable, but to make us comforters.”  

“‎"The real measure of our wealth is how much we should be worth if we lost all our money.” 

“Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic.”  

- John Henry Jowett

Expecting the unexpected

Keep your life so constant in its contact with God that His surprising power may break out on the right hand and on the left. Always be in a state of expectancy, and see that you leave room for God to come in as He likes.
- Oswald Chambers

An interview with God

“Come in,” God said. “So you would like to interview me?”

“If You have the time,”  I said.

God smiled. “My time is eternity. That’s enough time to do everything.
What questions do you have in mind?”

“What surprises you most about mankind?”

“Many things.”
 “That they get bored of being children, are in a rush to grow up,
               and then long to be children again.          
That they lose their health to make money and then lose their
               money to restore health.
That by thinking anxiously about the future, they forget the present, and
               live neither for the present nor for the future.
That they live as if they will never die, and die as if they had never lived.”

 God took my hands in His. We were silent for a while, then I asked,
“As a parent, what are some of life’s lessons You want
               Your to children learn?”

God replied with a smile.
 “To learn that they cannot make anyone love them.
               They can only let themselves be loved.
To learn that what is most valuable is not what they have
               in their lives, but who they have in their lives.
To learn that it is not good to compare themselves to others.
               All will be judged individually on their own merits,
               not as a group on a comparison basis.

To learn that a rich person is not the one who has the most,
               but is one who needs the least.
To learn that it takes only a few seconds to open profound wounds
               in persons they love and  many years to heal them.
To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.
To learn there are persons who love them dearly, but simply do not
               know how to express or show their feelings.

To learn that money can buy everything but happiness.
To understand that two people can look at the same thing
               and see it totally differently.
To appreciate that a true friend is someone who knows everything about
               them, and likes them anyway.
To learn that it is not always enough that they be forgiven by others,
                but that they have to forgive themselves.”

I sat there for a while enjoying the moment. I thanked God for this time
              and for all that He has done for me and my family.
Then Godreplied, “Anytime, I’m here twenty-four hours a day. All you have
              to do is ask and I’ll answer. People will forget what you said.
              People will forget what you did. But people will never forget
              how you made them feel.”

James J.Lachard (Jim Brown) 

Have you interviewed God recently? 

More important, have you allowed Him to interview you?